By LARRY GAGE
Special to the PRESS
Jacob Pinkerton has been hard at work for months preparing for the 2019 high school football season. The Press found him in the weight room recently and he talked about his upcoming senior season of football, and briefly looked back on last season.
“Last year we had a lot of errors,” Pinkerton said. “It was all new to us – we had just got into the new program. This year we’re accustomed to it.”
The 2018 season is history but history is a great teacher, and one of the ways in which football history teaches is to remind current Tarpon players of all that went wrong in last year’s defeats. And a lot went wrong in those losses, such as the 34-7 beating at the hands of Valley view, and the 56-57 bi-district loss to West Oso.
To make sure no one forgets those games the scores are posted in large print on the weight room wall at the school.
Pinkerton acknowledges the change in the team’s mindset since second-year head coach Jason Strunk assumed his duties last July.
“Once Coach Strunk came around everyone’s mindset really changed, compared to how we were the previous years. We’re all on board. There’s still a few weak links, but basically everyone’s on board, about 95% of the team.”
Considering that the team was learning the new offense on the fly through most of the season, the results for 2018 were rather good. But it was something of a roller-coaster ride. Big wins, such as the 46-9 victory over Progreso, were followed by equally big losses, like the 48-0 defeat at Raymondville.
Playing mostly on defense at safety, Pinkerton played in all but one of the Tarpons’ games in 2018. He recorded 38 total tackles, including 23 solo.
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